Girl Authentic

It Was The First Time There Was A Line

I was going to have to wait in line to use the restroom. And I couldn’t have been happier.

I’ve been attending my profession’s annual global conference since I was a junior in college in 1987 (I’ll let you do the math). There was often a line for the men’s room, but never for the women’s room. It was, we used to joke, one of the perks of attending our profession’s conference as a woman. You could get into the bathroom any time, no waiting. There just weren’t that many women in our industry.

And then, this year, it was different. I walked in to the restroom – and there was a line! I was a bit taken aback. I had been so used to attending the conference, and there never being a line. Another woman and I just stood there looking at each other, realizing we were sharing the same thought.

I was lucky – I was part of the first wave of women who benefited from my profession’s efforts to create opportunities for women. And it did take specific efforts! Over the years, CSCMP has worked tirelessly to help advance women in our profession. So have many great companies. So have the terrific universities and professors that are educating the next generation of Supply Chain Management professionals.

What did they do? They started by having the right conversations and asking the right questions. What can we do? How do we attract more women? How do we support them? They do research to show whether women truly are advancing in the field, and they actively seek out women to interest them in their profession, their university programs, their companies, and the terrific jobs this field provides.

Contrast this with the International Manufacturing and Technology Show I attended with one of my business partners a few weeks earlier in Chicago. There were more than 113,000 attendees at the conference. But twice during the four days we were there, I found I was the ONLY person in the women’s restroom. (It was sort of spooky, really.)

Two professions – very different gender balance.

There is tremendous opportunity today for women – in both supply chain management and in manufacturing technologies. We may have made more progress in supply chain management today, but we can do the same in manufacturing tomorrow. We’ll do it the way we do anything in the professional world. We’ll work at it. We’ll make an effort. And, women can lead the way by building these companies of the future.

3 Comments

Thank you for supporting CSCMP and highlighting our efforts to promote women in supply chain in your blog – you are an awesome lady and I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to spend time with you in San Antonio!

Great to see the supply chain industry progress and be more gender inclusive and balanced.
Some industries have gone from male dominated to female dominated in just a few decades. There is great potential in many fields but too often there isn’t a thoughtful conversation about how to attract more women. Merely forcing women to do what men have done to find success (which often even men don’t like doing) is an old model. New generations of women are coming out schools and have little patience or tolerance for old ways of thinking and running companies.

You are so right Ben! The young women of today are going to be the leaders in creating what it looks like in the future and the NEW ways of thinking and running companies. That’s a conversation we want to be having!